Reports

Green hydrogen, produced from water and renewable power through the electrolysis process, can play a crucial role in the low-carbon transition to achieve the net-zero emission targets. Currently, the production cost of green hydrogen is not competitive when compared to hydrogen produced from natural gas. High capital costs are a major factor constraining its cost-competitiveness. This working paper utilises financial market data to address the knowledge gap concerning the range of Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) for green hydrogen projects. It also conducts a survey among investors and financiers to identify key risk factors contributing to the high WACC. The key risks that have been identified include offtaker risks, lack of credible offtakers, price uncertainty of green hydrogen, and the absence of hydrogen trading markets. These risks are closely connected to the available risk mitigation strategies and tools. The paper summarises key risk mitigation strategies identified through case studies of lighthouse green hydrogen projects that have either reached or are nearly point of reaching financial investment decisions.

Industry decarbonisation is a cornerstone to reach net-zero emissions by this mid-century. The diversity of industrial activities, processes and products, the complexity of global industrial value chains, and the international competition make industry decarbonisation a challenging objective. Annual investments in low-carbon technologies for industry decarbonisation need to increase by a factor of three to five by 2030 compared to current levels to align industrial emissions with net-zero pathways. This paper analyses available financing solutions to scale up investments at pace, especially in emerging and developing economies where industrial production is growing rapidly whilst available finance is limited. It highlights de-risking and financial instruments and models that can help accelerate investments and draws lessons from twelve financing industry decarbonisation case studies which demonstrate how private capital can be mobilised.

Open finance enables the sharing of, and access to, financial sector data. This paper analyses the benefits, risks and implementation challenges of Open finance and provides policy recommendations for the safe and successful implementation of such data-sharing frameworks in finance. It considers the impacts of providing access to customers’ financial data and how to do this responsibly and safely, with due consideration for data privacy. The paper also discusses other consumer safeguards, notably related to consent and liability. Finally, it considers whether there is a need to support the development of technical infrastructure to promote data interoperability.

This paper resents a measurement framework aiming to support the collection of comprehensive and internationally comparable quantitative and qualitative information on governmental innovation support programmes and instruments. It proposes a taxonomic system with definitions, classifications and reporting conventions aligned with OECD and other international standards. The framework is intended to support future OECD measurement efforts in this area and the analysis of innovation support portfolios within and across countries.

This report analyses current trends of adaptation finance provided and mobilised by developed countries for developing countries. It explores potential action areas for international providers to scale up funding for climate change adaptation, including by unlocking the potential of the private sector. The analysis is anchored in the context of the USD 100 billion climate finance goal, initially set for 2020 and extended to 2025, while also providing insights to the broader and longer-term objective of supporting developing countries’ ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change.

This report explores evidence-based action areas to increase and accelerate the mobilisation of private finance for climate action in developing countries, and the role of international public finance providers in doing so. It draws on best-available data to provide disaggregated analysis of the sectoral, geographic and other features of private finance mobilised by public climate finance and presents key economy-wide, sector-specific, and institutional challenges to private finance mobilisation. The analysis is anchored in the context of the USD 100 billion climate finance goal, initially set for 2020 and extended to 2025, while also providing insights related to mobilising private finance for climate action in developing countries more broadly.

Ce rapport présente les tendances agrégées du financement climatique annuel fourni et mobilisé par les pays développés pour les pays en développement sur la période 2013-2021. Les tendances sont présentées par thème climatique, secteur, par instrument financier et par groupe de pays bénéficiaires pour la période 2016-2021. Le rapport fournit également des recommandations clés pour les bailleurs de fonds internationaux afin d'augmenter le financement de l'adaptation et de mobiliser plus efficacement le financement privé pour l'action climatique, qui sont à la fois des priorités politiques importantes et des éléments représentants un défi à l’heure actuelle. Les recommandations de ce rapport se basent sur deux publications de l'OCDE sur l'augmentation des financements privés pour le climat et l'adaptation.

This paper makes the case for greater transparency of investment incentives and explores how governments can enhance transparency of these measures, notably for investment facilitation purposes. It proposes three overarching principles of transparency that can be used to better inform policy design: availability, accessibility and clarity of information. It also sets out a framework and typology to understand the scope of incentives offered in a country and identify what information could support transparency, drawing on data on the use and level of transparency of incentives (including tax, financial and in-kind benefits) in a sample of 15 developing economies.

Fiscal equalisation and regional development policies have often been perceived as separate policy fields. As a result, little is known about their potential interactions and implications for economic growth and welfare. This working paper reviews the two policies, explores the potential for enhanced synergies between the two, and proposes a theoretical framework linking them. The latter, which has not been empirically tested yet, posits that if regional development policies are correctly designed and implemented, their success should result in a drop of income disparities. Coupled with good governance practices and a framework that clearly allocates responsibilities among levels of government, more equal jurisdictions would find it easier to provide similar levels of services with comparable tax rates across the country. Therefore, whilst correctly designed and implemented fiscal equalisation policies remain a tool to patch gaps that may occur due to the shifting variety of revenue potential and spending needs of subnational entities, the need and the size of fiscal equalisation transfers could be significantly reduced if regional development policies in place are effective. This working paper concludes with a discussion on the benefits and challenges of enhancing synergies between the two policies, opening the door for future in-depth research.

This annual publication compiles comparable tax revenue and non-tax revenue statistics for 33 countries in Africa: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Togo, Tunisia and Uganda. The report extends the well-established methodology on the classification of public revenues set out in the OECD Interpretative Guide to African countries, thereby enabling comparison of tax levels and tax structures not only across the continent but also with the OECD, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia and the Pacific. Data on African countries presented in this publication are also included in the OECD’s Global Revenue Statistics database, which is a fundamental reference for analysis of domestic resource mobilisation. This edition includes a special feature on the VAT Digital Toolkit for Africa. The publication is jointly undertaken by the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, the OECD Development Centre, the African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), with the financial support of the European Union. SPECIAL FEATURE: VAT DIGITAL TOOLKIT FOR AFRICA